


His Name

by Il-Papa-Patata (Emby_M)



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Abbey headcanons, Best Friends, Cooking, Ghost is Ghosts AU, Himbo Swiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:15:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28793022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emby_M/pseuds/Il-Papa-Patata
Summary: She slips in through the old wooden doors, looking across the half-lit tables to the back. There were two kitchens – a much bigger one usually haunted by Aether and Nonna Beatriz, the one that supplied the Friday feasts, and the smaller one that the clergy were free to use any time. That one is lit.She crosses the hall – not gigantic, but not small, still a little cold. Any room of this size was hard to heat after all. And when she comes to the doorway of the room always open, she finds the big, broad shouldered form of her best friend standing there, his own housecoat abandoned on the back of a chair.-Cumulus comes down to the kitchens and has a chat with her best friend, Swiss.
Relationships: Cumulus & Swiss Army Ghoul, Mary Goore/Multi Ghoul | Swiss Army Ghoul
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	His Name

Cumulus comes down to the refectory to see if maybe there was someone still awake in the kitchens, someone who could whip her up something hot.

She pads down in her slippers and thick housecoat, crossing her arms to ward off the slight chill that sets in in the old halls. The path down from the dormitory – really more like modern apartments than the monastic cells of yesteryear – crosses into the main buildings of the anti-Vatican, where central heating and modern insulation didn't reside. So many long long nights of rehearsal spent with all of them bundling close in blankets and quilts. Cumulus is glad for the housecoat Mountain got her for her 300th death anniversary as she dips along the halls trying to be as quiet as possible.

She's heard other places like this were way more restrictive – that there would be the fear of being caught and punished for going around this late. But half the time the Mother Superiors or even the Papas could be found down in the kitchens at midnight, slurping cheap cup-noodles or heating up leftovers. She's mostly quiet just to be courteous to the deep, winter-scented silence that blankets the old halls.

The double doors at the end of the refectory are cracked, just an inch, and a quiet, orange light slinks out of them. There's someone there, and the faint smell of roasting onion catches even in the cold.

She slips in through the old wooden doors, looking across the half-lit tables to the back. There were two kitchens – a much bigger one usually haunted by Aether and Nonna Beatriz, the one that supplied the Friday feasts, and the smaller one that the clergy were free to use any time. That one is lit.

She crosses the hall – not gigantic, but not small, still a little cold. Any room of this size was hard to heat after all. And when she comes to the doorway of the room always open, she finds the big, broad shouldered form of her best friend standing there, his own housecoat abandoned on the back of a chair.

“Issie?” she calls.

He doesn't turn. So she takes another few steps in, skirting the sturdy kitchen table, and lays a hand on his arm. “Issie?”

He looks down.

“Oh,” he says, a faint flush on his cheeks and a slow-rousing look in his eyes, “hey.”

“What are you making?”

He looks down at the pot he stirs. Stares at it for a long moment, as if he couldn't quite remember, and then snaps back to paying attention. “Oh. Minestrone. There's uh,” he turns back to the table, where a wooden cutting board sits, a wax paper packet of salame and a thick pan of Sister Crocetta's legendary focaccia beside it, “Other things. Too.”

She stares at him for a long moment once he turns back to the slowly cooking soup, gradually thickening with rice. It's just that his eyes are a little distant, and he's not as quick with his response, or as broadly smiling. She could maybe say it was the hour if it was anyone else, but she doesn't think it's that.

“How long have you been cooking?” She asks, dragging over a stepstool to reach into the upper cabinets where they keep the instant cup-noodles, something Cumulus can't keep in her own apartment or else she'll eat them for every meal.

“Uh, an hour? Maybe. There's enough soup for two, if you can wait.”

She comes back down off the stool, folding it up and setting it against the wall.

Actually, that was odd too, that Swiss was down here at all.

Because the ghouls had little kitchens in their apartments. Nothing as extensive as down here, and you typically had to keep up your own pantry or ask for an allotment from the kitchen staff, but Swiss definitely kept his kitchen well stocked.

So why-?

Swiss seems to sense the apprehension.

“You uh, you wanna ask something, bud?”

She dithers. Swiss could be slippery about talking about things.

“I would've thought you had these ingredients in your apartment is all.”

“Oh, yeah, I do,” he says.

“So... why here? I don't think you knew I was coming.”

“Maybe I did,” he laughs, “Thought I felt a craving from you.”

She laughs too, trying to handle the conversation so he wouldn't wriggle away to another topic. Not that she would hate it if they slipped into something more comfortable but-

“Um, and I didn't want to wake Mary.”

Ah.

“So Mary's...”

“Sleeping. In... my bed.”

She grins a little.

“And here I thought he'd gotten his own apartment by now.”

“Well... he visits.”

“He didn't seem the type to get woken up by the smell of deliiiicous home cooking.” She sidles up to Swiss, wriggling into his side as he laughs.

“No, he's a light sleeper sometimes. Especially when he's sick. And he's- we're both- tired.”

“Oh?”

Swiss pulls his lips in as he stirs the minestrone more.

“I-” he sighs, the pinkness of his cheeks deepening, “I did something dumb.”

Cumulus raises her eyebrows, reaches over to turn off the range, and steers Swiss around until he's sitting at the table in front of the foccacia and the salame.

“The soup wasn't finished...” he pouts, but she's already pulling down the moka to put on the stove, throwing in the coffee and setting it to simmer.

“It looks fine,” she says, “But _you_ have got to dish.”

Swiss looks like a kid who got sent to bed with no dessert, hands in his lap, pouting down at the table.

“Come on now,” she says, coming beside him. Despite the pout, he loops an arm around her waist, leaning his head against her stomach.

“I- We had a night in. Cause he's still getting over that cold? And he was just relaxing in my lap and kind of talking about his past and stuff, and this morning before I went to work, he woke up in a panic because he was- Ugh no, wait. This story's coming out in the wrong order. I need bread.”

She laughs, freeing herself from his arm as he reaches to cut the focaccia.

She pulls bowls down to dish the soup between the two of them, grabbing the ever-present bag of parmesan in the fridge and sprinkling some on top.

When she returns with the bowls of fresh soup, he's cut some foccacia and laid a few pieces of salame on each piece.

“That is beef salame, yeah?”

“I told you I knew you were coming.”

“You are so _sweet_ to me!” she gushes, a bit over the top like they always were with each other. “But you still have to diiiiish.”

Swiss sighs, takes the bowl of minestrone from her, and bites the bread.

“Well. I mean,” he chews, “He woke up in a panic because he couldn't breathe. Cause of the cold. S'not the first time but it was scary for him.” A spoonful of soup. “We got him steadier with some steam, but I still had leave him alone to go and take care of the kids. They missed him today.”

Cumulus laughs a bit. “Really? He's so... pointy, though.”

“He's great with them. They love him and he loves them. Poor Marietta wouldn't calm down at all for her nap because he wasn't there,” he chuckles, “We made do with a doll she thought looked like him. If you were curious-”

“You know I am.”

“It was a scraggly raccoon doll.”

She grins, having a bit of the soup. It is a little thinner than his usual, but it's still delicious.

“Um, but when I got home we just had a nice easy afternoon. I fiddled with a new song – remind me to tell you about it later- and we had kind of a mid afternoon supper kind of thing and Mary took a nap- Urgh-”

Swiss furrows his brow, holds a finger, and takes a couple hasty bites of bread, shoveling spoonfuls of the soup into his mouth, chewing the whole mess and swallowing. “I didn't have dinner, I'm starving.”

“Pretty rare you skip a meal.”

“I got uh. Distracted.” He blindly reaches behind him for a glass of water he kept by the stovetop, swallowing down. “Cause I – told Mary my name.”

Cumulus stands.

She doesn't mean to but it's just-

His _name_?

That was-

When you became a Ghoul, fresh from death, you were reborn in more than one way. Re-anointed. In many ways, you left behind who you were. The clergy, and the laity especially, didn't learn your pre-death name, and if they did, they were supposed to forget it.

Except something else had evolved in its place. Probably it was Omega that started it, Omega who was inscrutable but always warm and indulgent, Omega who knew everything about everything.

The Name became something you really only shared if you-

Well, Cirrus knew her name. And she knew Cirrus's name. Rain and Mountain knew each other's names – and Mountain still calls him sometimes with a shortening of it, a bold brag from a subtle lover. Dew and Aether knew each others'. Dew tells almost no one his name, being the oldest of them and more of him lost to the past. Aether wears that trust just in the way he walks sometimes.

“I know, it's- stupid,” he laughs, covering his face with his hands, “But I just- he was resting in my lap and telling me about his death and I just- I was overcome and I told him and then he-” Swiss swallows, gripping at the edge of the table, the pinkness back in full force, “Kept. Using it.”

She swallows, watching as Swiss shrinks down towards the table, gripping it like he was trying to support his whole weight on his fingertips.

“I didn't know how good it felt,” he murmurs, “he just kept- calling me it and kissing me and-”

“Oh Lucifer, Issie,” she says, coming around the table and pulling him into her chest, “Oh, honey.”

“I didn't know...” he murmurs, “We... uh, we fucked, obviously, but it was _different._ I tucked him in all comfy and he just smiled while he called me it... and it might have been like, the hundredth time that night but it was... good.”

Cumulus looks down at her friend. Her dear, dear friend. And sees in the pinkness of his cheeks and the warmth of his body and the shine in his pretty silver eyes how much Mary was becoming something like Cirrus is to her.

And she's... proud, she thinks. Because Issie just... didn't really _do_ love. He pretended he didn't, rather. Because he had so much affection and joy to give but he always just pushed it down, and just kept it to one night stands or friends-with-benefits, or tried to pretend he didn't love the rest of the ghouls, but now, with Mary-

There wasn't any leeway. She'd seen how Mary didn't play coy about liking Swiss. Mary swanned over to his big boyfriend often, leaned up and threw his arms around his neck, found any chance to kiss him (much to the other Ghouls' faux-gagging delight.) Mary didn't let Swiss call himself dumb or ugly. Mary took care of him when he was sick (and how she had heard about that one, Swiss's still raw throat singing praise for the pointy man's nursing talents,) and soothed him when he was sad, and let him work it out when he was angry.

And Swiss wasn't pushing it away.

Swiss was finally letting it happen, letting the love come to him and fully embracing it.

His name.

Even she doesn't know that.

She squeezes her best friend, feels his hot cheek against her tummy, and is just so proud of him.

“So,” she giggles, resting her cheek against the top of his head, “Are we all gonna have a double wedding or what?”

Swiss's sputter is enough to send her into giggles for a good week.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


End file.
